Pernicone on Italian “individualist” anarchists (1993)

[Luigi] Galleani, [Pietro] Gori, and the others restored a measure of activism among a militant minority of the rank and file, reestablished a following among workers in several regions, and generally fostered a resurgence of the movement discernible by the end of decade. Unquestionably, they represented the best of the new generation. But the 1880s also produced another element that represented anarchism at its worst, a group of fanatics whose intolerance and fractious behavior operated to the complete detriment of the movement­—the so-called individualists.

The individualists were not disciples of Max Stirner, Benjamin Tucker, John Henry Mackay, or other theorists of individualist anarchism, none of whom were known in Italy until the twentieth century. The Italian individualists of this period were an evolutionary offshoot of the antiorganizationalist current, a spontaneous mutation amounting to a new breed. Although they frequently called themselves anarchist communists, the individualists defied description in standard ideological terms. Basically, they were amoralists who embodied the worst attitudes and propensities of the antiorganizationalist current: egoistic preoccupation with individual autonomy and free initiative; unwavering rejection of organization of any form; isolation from and contempt for the masses; and, in some cases, a strong tendency toward individual acts of violence.